[rating=5.00] “Hardhome”
After being assured over and over (and over) for the past 5 years, it finally looks like winter isn’t just coming, it’s most certainly here. While its cinematic handling left some do be desired, it was a welcome payoff by a show that has, of late, excelled at little else aside from testing the patience of it’s viewers.
“Here we are, two terrible children of two terrible fathers.”
Tyrion is brought before Daenerys, where a lot of posturing conversation takes place about his fate being death or a position on her council. Standing at her throne with only Missandei by her side, Tyrion sees an opportunity to play off her need for advisors, boasting his intricate knowledge of the city of King’s Landing as well as its politics.
Daenerys, on the other hand, puts Tyrion’s proposed loyalty to the test early on, by insisting he offer his insight into Jorah’s fate. Given that Jorah is known to Tyrion only as his captor, he’s quite aware of his backstory, which may be why he is surprisingly compassionate regarding his fate. Though his speech lacks the certain gusto that it did when he plead for his life years earlier at The Vale.
Tyrion ends up advising her to spare Jorah’s life, though he does find himself exiled, now for a third time. Once outside the city’s walls, we’re reminded of his slowly growing patch of greyscale before he returns to the slaver who sold him, begging again for a chance to take part in the fighting pits. Seemingly the last wish of a dying man desperate to prove his allegiance to his queen, it comes off as equal parts loyal and sad, which ends up serving as one of this season’s more consistent subplots.
“It is all the same to the Many-Faced God.”
Arya continues her training under Jaqen, fabricating her backstory as an orphan girl selling oysters on the streets of Braavos. The scene is put together like some warmed-over parody of the Ocean’s 11 series, Arya explains the plan as it’s intercut with footage of her doing so. It’s too jarring a shift in how the storytelling has taken shape over five years.
Add to that this the regurgitating of the shrugged-shoulder, half-assed philosophy of the Faceless Men and their Many-Faced God, and the show has forced one of its most beloved characters into an irritatingly mediocre storyline.
“Belief is so often the death of reason.”
Cersei, being kept in a dungeon awaiting trial, is (often forcefully) prodded into confessing, to which she replies with her usual charming rancor, though weakened and nearly trembling out of her mouth as she speaks. She even moves toward begging at one point, promising wealth to the woman tending to her before slurping water off the stone floor to stay alive.
It’s a curious turning point for the show, as this notion of Cersei being broken down as comeuppance for all the terrible things she’s inflicted on noble (and less-than noble) characters sounds gratifying in theory. However, due to the fact that it’s the result of religious fanaticism circumventing the crown, a preposterously stupid and lazy plot device, as Cersei at no point has gained any sense of sympathy from the audience.
The flickering light of hope for this entire storyline comes when Qyburn comes to visit, who seemingly offers Cersei little help or hope, assures her that his work continues. News that is so welcomed by her it manages to break her solemn expression with a smile.
“I deserve everything. I deserve to be Reek.”
At Winterfell, Sansa continues to work to break through Theon’s warped and long-tortured mind. She hounds him as to why he betrayed her much like he’d betrayed the rest of her family, including his siege of Winterfell and the alleged murder of her two youngest brothers.
Chipping away slightly at the damage Theon’s incurred, he does ‘confess’ that he never murdered Bran and Rickon, but two farm boys whom he burned so no one would dispute his claim. It does little practical good at this point, though does provide Sansa with some much-needed hope, knowing she’s not the last member of House Stark alive in Westeros.
Roose, meanwhile, seems ready to celebrate a victory before Stannis’ troops have even arrived. Assuring everyone that all he needs is to wait out their upcoming attempt of a siege, largely thanks to the increasingly bleak conditions as winter has finally arrived. Ramsay sees it differently, and when advised by his father that they wouldn’t be able to get an army through the deepening snow, he asks instead for twenty good men to strike Stannis and his invading army preemptively.
“We are fools together now.”
As rivals turned allies Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane arrive on at the shores of Hardhome to a silent and auspicious welcome, it begs one obvious question: with everywhere from The Wall to Winterfell being pelted with snow to the degree that Stannis’ horses are dying and men are deserting him, how is the weather north of the wall so comparably pleasant?
But I digress.
Once ashore at Hardhome, seemingly thousands of Wildlings stand in silence as The Lord of Bones makes a welcome reappearance, questioning why Tormund travels with The Night’s Watch while not in chains. He explains their newfound alliance is grown from necessity, and when The Lord of Bones seems unwilling to discuss the matter, he’s quickly and savagely beaten to death in the name of furthering the discourse in the name of their overall survival.
Of course, thousands of years of rivalry and war between The Night’s Watch and The Wildlings is conveniently brought to an end after one casual conversation around a fire, while passing around some dragon glass. Most seem willing to travel south of The Wall, through the gates where they’ll be allowed land on the condition they fight the army of the dead when the time comes.
As it so happens, the time comes almost immediately as they’re boarding the ships, and ominous sound is heard in the distance, and at long last, we’re given an invading army of the dead in a full-scale battle.
Unfortunately, thanks to a combination of desaturation and blurry, kinetic camera movements, it’s difficult to tell what is going on most of the time, as we’re not even given a clear sense of the space Hardhome is set within. Add to that the eye-rolling trope of “losing” the bag of dragon glass amidst the chaos, it once again becomes the attempt to force a show that defies convention into overused, cookie-cutter tropes.
Not to say it isn’t without it’s moments, and the idea of fast moving, sword-wielding members of the undead is certainly terrifying, and there’s enough moving parts within the scene to keep the attempts at deciphering exactly what’s happening engaged.
As Jon, Tormund and the remaining survivors push out on the last boat, we see The Night King, who’d been watching the battle from high upon the cliff, walk through the carnage only to raise his raise his hands silently. With that, all those killed open their eyes, now a hollow blue, and stand silently to a now vastly increased army of the undead.
Playing out in near-complete silence, Jon and company watch from their boat (which seems to stay in the exact same place for a frustratingly long period of time), as they watch their most fearsome enemy grow his army exponentially.
While finally putting forth threats that have loomed far away on the horizon for years, the change of pace is both welcome and abrupt, and while the show continues to diverge significantly on it’s own path, it’s handled in alternately enjoyable and frustrating waves.
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